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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 5648213" data-attributes="member: 48965">How do hit points, levels, experience points, etc. necessarily determine whether a game is Gamist vs. Simulationist, at least from the GNS definitions, I don't believe they do... they are just a mechanical way of modeling something in the game... perhaps it would be better if we had some definitions of Simulationist and Gamist to refer to...   IMO, 3e/PF seems to strongly support emphasize many of the charactersistics of simulationist play, such as... 1. Modeling of cause and effect (everyone shares the same rules, Str is for melee attks, Dex is for Rngd, etc.). 2. Characters that are independent entities with minds of their own, and model their behaviour accordingly... a sense of objectivity that is strived for. (very few if any meta-game mechanics for players... or DM's) 3. Promoting the daydream of a self-contained bubble universe that operates independently of player volition. (There are worldbuilding rules in 3.x)  4. Techniques are both deterministic and relatively hands-off: events unfold on the basis of internal rules, not because the player decides it. (Again very little, if any, meta-game abilities for players and DM's) 5. A concern for character backgrounds, personality traits and motives, in an effort to model cause and effect within the intellectual realm as well as the physical. (PrC's with prerequisites) Now most people will claim that D&D 3.x/PF isn't realistic in its simulationist play... but it doesn't have to be in order to be a simulationist system...   I also feel that certain aspects of Gamist play just don't exist or aren't as well supported in PF/3.x as they are in 4e... 1. Strong emphasis on parity in character effectiveness (This is 4e's claim to fame) 2. A diversity in options for short-term problem solving (i.e., long lists of highly specific spells or combat techniques). (powers for everybody definitely suppports this better than just spells for casters) 3. Randomisation (i.e., <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory#Other_terms" target="_blank">Fortune methods</a>) exist primarily to provide a gamble and allow players to risk more for higher stakes. (AEDU structure, seems to support regularly risking higher or lower stakes on an attack roll.)  4. Games which pit characters against successively tougher challenges and opponents, and may not spend much time dwelling on why the characters are facing them in the first place. (Until recently this was one of the top complaints of many/the majority of WotC adventures released)   But experience points,as they appear in 4e or 3.x/PF, don't have anything to do with Gamist play since they don't push for Gamist play unless the PC's are aware of them in-game somehow... or if they are divided up dependant upon one's contributions to an encounter as opposed to everyone involved in the encounter receiving the same amount for participating no matter what their particular contribution is... In other words they don't push you to win, only to participate. Of course this was a different case in certain older editions.  If anything I would say the main Gamist push in all editions of D&D comes from the possibility of death/TPK in an encounter... through this the rules set up a win/loose condition which pushes Gamist play where the PC is trying to "win" by surviving.</blockquote>

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